Magic 107, Kings 100: Another Beamless Night

By the numbers, last nights loss wasn’t the worst of the season, yet somehow it felt like it.  Facing a Magic team that was missing some key players and had been struggling themselves, the Kings came out looking unprepared and sloppy.  21 turnovers, most of which felt unforced, led to 33 points for Orlando.  The Magic also beat the Kings up on the glass with 12 offensive rebounds for 15 second chance points.  All those extra possessions meant that by the end of the game, Orlando had shot 15 more times than the Kings (and that’s with the Kings shooting more free throws), and it led to yet another home loss with the Kings falling to 1-10.

Zach LaVine led the way offensively for the Kings with 31 points on 10-16 shooting, but 8 of those points also came in the final minute or so of garbage time with the game basically out of reach.  Darius Acuff Jr. finished with 29 points, 6 assists and 4 rebounds.  Franz Wagner (33 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists) and Anthony Black (26 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals) led the way for Orlando.

The turnover issues started almost immediately for Sacramento, with 8 of them coming in the first quarter.  As a result the Magic were able to hop out to a 34-20 lead.  The Kings then proceeded to go on a big run of their own, taking the lead shortly into the 2nd quarter in large part to some hot shooting from Zach LaVine.  Sacramento went on a 20-1 run and held a 40-35 lead with 8:24 left in the first half.  The Kings offense went cold after that and they had no answer for Franz Wagner breaking down the defense.  Time and time again, the Magic ran the same exact play to get Darius Acuff Jr. to switch on the much bigger Wagner, and the Kings didn’t really make any adjustments.  By the end of the half, the Magic were in control again, leading 57-52.

The third quarter featured perhaps the most perplexing rotation decision of the entire season for head coach Doug Christie.  With the Kings within three points midway through the quarter, Christie trotted out a lineup featuring Emanuel Sharp, Zach LaVine, Keegan Murray, DeAndre Hunter and Dylan Cardwell.  You might notice the fact there is no Point Guard in that lineup at all.  Sure, Malik Monk isn’t a real Point Guard either, but he’s essentially the only other player on the roster aside from Darius Acuff that has been running the point for this team all season.  Monk did play in the first quarter, but his first possession of the game was an immediate turnover off a bad pass.  After playing 2:30, he got the hook and never re-entered the game.  That lineup proceeded to not score for the next few minutes, and Christie’s first substitution wasn’t to put Acuff back in, but rather to add in even more non ballhandlers in Daeqwon Plowden and Leaky Black for Zach LaVine and DeAndre Hunter.  What had been a three point game became a 12 point game by the time Darius Acuff Jr. came back in, and Acuff made an immediate impact offensively, brining the Kings back to within 6.

Now there’s one name that you might have noticed hasn’t been mentioned at all as of yet and it’s Domantas Sabonis.  Sabonis had missed the previous game resting his knee that he had issues with last season, but came back tonight.  If I haven’t mentioned his name at this point it’s because he might not as well have existed in the game at this point.  Domantas Sabonis didn’t take his first shot of the game until the 10:10 mark of the 4th quarter, and his only other shot of the entire game would happen on the same possession after the Kings got a second chance opportunity.  Both were missed.  All in all Sabonis played 23 minutes and scored 0 assists, had just 2 rebounds and totaled 5 assists, finishing a game worst -14.  It was hands down the worst game Domantas Sabonis has ever played in a Sacramento Kings uniform and possibly one of the worst in his career.  If he wasn’t feeling ready to play, he shouldn’t have.  And if he was and this is how he played anyway, that’s scary.

The Kings weren’t able to pull it together in the 4th quarter with Black and Wagner continually finding the weak spots in the Kings defense.  After the game, Darius Acuff Jr. seemed distraught in his post-game press conference.

11 games into his career and the Kings have already lost more games than Acuff did at Arkansas last season.  Losing doesn’t feel good, and this is probably the first time in his career that he’s had to experience this much of it.  Unfortunately for him, it is a long season and more losses are likely on the way.  The upcoming schedule is brutal, and there’s no easy fix this team can make to turn this around.

The Kings have three more games left on this homestand, but the competition is stiff, with the next two games coming against the 7-3 Portland Trail Blazers and the 8-3 Oklahoma City Thunder.  They’ll need to play far better than they did tonight to even have a chance or this could get a lot worse before it gets better.

Random Observations:

• Keegan Murray put together probably his best performance of the season coming off the bench for the second game in a row.  Murray scored 11 points to go with 4 blocks and also hit 2-3 from distance.  He is taking a lot more fallaway midrange jumpers than I remember him doing, and I’d like to see him a bit more aggressive in trying to take it to the rim through contact instead, but it’s a positive step forward and I think we’ll see him back in the starting lineup soon.
• Precious Achiuwa left the game early with a lower leg contusion.  No word yet if he is going to miss any time.
• De’Andre Hunter continues to shoot well, making 3 of 6 from downtown yesterday.  He’s up to 36.8% from three on the season.
• Emanuel Sharp had one of his weaker games, but I also think he was put in some weird lineups where he was asked to do some things he wasn’t as comfortable with, like handle the ball.  His aggressiveness on defense can lead to a lot of fouls (4 tonight in just 19 minutes), but I’d rather have him learning how to dial that down than needing to get him to dial it up.
• Leaky Black didn’t score last night, but his effort on defense and in pure hustle is always noticeable when he’s on the floor. He and Cardwell were the only Kings bench players to finish with a positive +/- (Zach LaVine being the only starter). I’ve also seen several people mention that he looks much larger than his listed height of 6’6 and I have to agree. He’s at least as tall as De’Andre Hunter.
• If Malik is in the dog house the Kings absolutely need to sign another body at Point Guard.  Doug keeps talking about how he doesn’t want to play Acuff this much, but actions speak louder than words and all he does is keep playing Acuff nearly 40 minutes a night. At this point even just bring up two-way guy Sean Pedulla to play for 5-10 minutes a game until we get someone else.